Courses
Artificial Intelligence in Games
Understand the differences between traditional AI and AI applied to game development, where other factors such as playability are more relevant that the oponent’s intelligence level. Be familiar with the practical problems when developing AI for video games, and with the several techniques applied in comercial video games. Know how to design and build an AI system for a video game independently of its genre (action, sport, strategy, narrative).
Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems
To acquire general notions about agents and multi-agent systems; knowing how to identify and classify agents and environments, according to different properties. Knowing how to develop complex systems and systems from different application areas, using an agent-oriented methodology. Knowing how to define a society of agents in order to solve a specific problem. Being able to design agents with reactive, deliberative and hybrid architectures. Being able to create societies of agents that communicate, in a practical way, using suitable languages and platforms.
Computer Graphics for Games
This course covers both theory and practice of game engine software development. It delves into the different engine subsystems including, but not limited to, rendering, character animation, and physics, and details the articulation required to support gameplay development. By the end of this course, students should understand how modern game engines work, and be able to design and develop their own game engines.
Game Design
This course grants the students the opportunity to develop their skills on experience design and prototyping for games. The learning process is sustained in the discussion of what is a game, what are its components and what is its relation to the players (having in mind their differences). It is expected that the student develop design documents and prototypes to support his/her work on the course.
Game Development Methodology
Present a vision of the different methodologies and technologies involved in the development of digital games discussing the main features and issues in each one. Grant students with conceptual tools and techniques to develop user interfaces for games with special emphasis on player controls. Develop the ability to reflect and test the player experience and gameplay. Discuss the role of conceptual modelling and user testing. Highlight the importance to take a user centred approach in the exploration of the player experience.
Multimedia Content Production
Know the different types of multimédia information and how to manipulate them to poduce multimedia content. To understand the technological constraints that affect Production. To understand critical factors affect the success of a production, namely in aspects such as capture, encoding, processing and visualization of the different media. To know the different kinds of available authoring tools. To create Multimedia contents; To identify the different contexts in which multimedia can be consumed, with emphasys on online and network issues (evaluate bandwidth, latency, synchronization, etc.) and mobile devices. Introduce some advanged multimedia usages such as procedural modelling, generative art augmented reality. Apply efficient methods of multimedia content retrieval.
Thesis
Procedural Quest Generation - Improving Skyrim’s Radiant Story
To explore the potential ability of games creating more dynamic, living worlds and stories, we took the existing Radiant Story and AI system created by Bethesda Softworks for Skyrim, which is capable of generating quests at run-time, and sought to understand what were its limitations or what caused it to not be enjoyed, in most parts, by the community and players. The basis for this project is the research and work done in the areas of procedural generation and interactive storytelling as a way to better dynamically create quests. As such, we had proposed to improve Skyrim's Radiant system by making this system create chained, that is, interconnected and sequential, events and quests, while attempting to maintain narrative coherence and characters' personalities consistent. The limitations of the base system however, did not allow for the complete development of the suggested structure, but still allowed the analysis of the potential of this type of work, and whether there is worth in continuing to follow it.
Military Confrontations simulator for the training of army officers
In this document, a study about the requirements of a military simulator for officer training is presented. In order to understand what those requirements are, we had interviews with military officers responsible for officer training and analyzed wargames existent in the market, including tabletop games, video games and military simulators in use by military forces. The study results in a comparison between the different military simulators in the market and a set of requirements for a military simulator. We also studied existing commercial frameworks which are low-priced or free, and allow for the development of a constructive simulator. Uniting both analyses, a proposal for a military simulator is presented. The proposed system has the advantage of being more affordable than existing military simulators. To demonstrate the viability of using one of the studied frameworks to develop a military simulator, a prototype was developed and tested. From their results, it can be concluded that the developed model can fulfill the proposed objectives.